MERCHANT SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 February 1940, Page 7

MERCHANT SHIPPING

LOSSES BY ENEMY ACTION

TOTAL SINCE THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. ONLY EIGHTEEN VESSELS LOST IN CONVOY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, February 13. The merchant shipping losses by enemy action for the week ended al midnight on February 11 were four British vessels, totalling 1421 tons, the Burgerdijk (Dutch, 6853 tons) and the Orania (Swedish, 1854 tons). In addition, the Voreda, a tanker which was rot announced sunk in last week's list owing to lack of definite information, is now stated to have been sunk. The total mercantile losses since the outbreak of the war have been estimated by competent naval quarters to have b'een as follows: 148 British ships, of 550,569 tons; 14 Allied ships, of 76,689 tons; and 120 neutral ships, of 352,485 tons.

Up to February 7 the number of ships escorted in British convoys since the beginning of the war was 8284, and the number lost in convoy 18. Of the 18 lost only two were neutrals, and only one of these—the Keramai, a Greek steamer —was sunk as a result of an attack by a U-boat. The U-boat paid the penalty for attacking the convoy, being sunk by escorting vessels and aircraft. The other neutral loss, which occurred as far back as the first week of December, was due to a mine. The figure of two neutral ships lost in convoy corrects the earlier reports that ■the number was three. Swedish newspapers are indignant about the continual sinking of their ships by the Nazis, and emphasise Mr Chamberlain's statement that not a single neutral ship has been sunk by the Allies. The Netherlands Press is also bitter, and the indignation has not been lessened by the statement from Berlin that the’sinking of the Burgerdijk was legal. EFFECTIVE DEVICE INVISIBLE U-BOATS NO LONGER IMMUNE. (Received This Day. 10.5 a.m.) LONDON, February 14. “The Times,” in a leader on the virtues of the convoy system, pays a tribute to the ingenuity of Navy experts who devised the Asdic and also the tireless exercise of that remarkable device, as the result of which U-boats are no longer immune from discovery and can be attacked without being visible.